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Al-Jaafari: UNSG 11th Report on Children and Armed Conflict Is Unprofessional and Motivated by Incitement against Syria

Al-Jaafari: UNSG 11th Report on Children and Armed Conflict Is Unprofessional and Motivated by Incitement against Syria

Sep 20, 2012

Syria dismissed the UN Secretary General’s 11th annual report on ‘Children and Armed Conflict’ as “unprofessional, dishonest and motivated by incitement” as it is aimed at harming Syria and tarnishing its reputation and the extent of its abidance by its international commitments on child protection and preventing violence against them during
armed conflicts.

Delivering Syria’s statement at an open UN Security Council session on Wednesday, Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Bashar al-Jaafari, voiced deep concern over the wrong information included in the report by the outgoing UNSG Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Radica Komara Swami.

“We therefore reject all the allegations brought in the report on my country Syria and denounce politicizing this important humanitarian issue which is in the first place concerned with the children of my country,” said al-Jaafari.

He decried the report as lacking the evidence and facts and depending instead on mere media-based anti-Syria claims, wishing that the report’s makers would have at least taken into consideration the Syrian government’s point of view “which we have persisted in conveying it to Komara Swami since the beginning of the events and until the end of her mandate.”

The Syrian Ambassador denounced Komara Swami’s insistence on placing the full responsibility for the acts of violence against children in Syria on the security and military authorities, lashing out at her “deliberate ignoring of the tens of other political and media reports and the testimonies of non-governmental parties which gave evidence on the armed terrorist groups’ resorting to conscripting children within their ranks and forcing them to carry arms…and carry out acts of killing and sabotage against private and public properties.”

“This is a fact not even the UN Secretary General’s report itself has been able to deny as it refers to reliable allegations on the armed groups conscripting children in their ranks,” al-Jaafari said.

He highlighted that the international investigation committee’s latest report on the situation in Syria also indicated that the armed groups conscripted children under 18 to kill and provide support in evacuating the injured and conveying messages in favor of the armed groups.

Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN reaffirmed his country’s commitment to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflicts which Syria signed since 2003, stressing that the armed groups are the ones which are committing violations against the rights of the child in Syria.

He cited also these groups’ hindering of the evacuation of the injured, patients, children and people with disabilities in some areas and keeping them as hostages, referring particularly to what happened in the city of Homs in the presence of representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

He hoped that the UNSG former representative would have included in her report the acts of burning, looting and sabotaging which the foreign-funded terrorist groups carried out against 2070 schools and kindergartens and the health centers, “which are all described in details in the UNICEF reports.”

Al-Jaafari stressed in his respond to Komara Swami’s call upon the Syrian government forces to pull out of schools that schools in Syria are being used as shelters for the displaced families and not as bases for the government military forces, citing in this regard the presidential statement of the 5th meeting of the Humanitarian Forum on Syria, held under the OCHA auspices in Geneva on September 7, 2012, in which the OCHA Coordinator in Damascus clarified to Komara Swami this fact.

The Syrian Ambassador wondered at the UNSG former representative’s ignoring of the 86 documented cases of rape against the Syrian women at the camps in Turkey by the Turkish guards, referring also to the reports and documents on the so-called ‘Licit Sexual Jihad’ made lawful by some in the Arab countries and practiced at the camps in Turkey and Jordan in terms of marrying displaced Syrian girls between 14 and 16, who are given a trivial amount of money in return.

He also blasted the UN report as refraining from referring to the impacts of the illegitimate unilateral economic measures taken against Syria on the Syrian children in terms of affecting the importing of vaccines and drugs because of the difficulty of money transfer.

Al-Jaafari denounced devoting 8 paragraphs on Syria in the report while completely ignoring any reference to the suffering of the Syrian children under the yoke of the Israeli occupation in the occupied Syrian Golan in all fields of life including education, food and water, in addition to the mines which have claimed 202 children and caused permanent disabilities to 329 others.

He also denounced the ignoring of the situation of Palestinian children in the territories occupied by Israel, in which 1500 children were killed since September 29, 2000, referring also to the numbers of children who were killed in Iraq, Libya and Yemen due to the NATO military intervention.

“The Syrian government stresses its right to defending its citizens,” said the Syrian Ambassador, reiterating call upon the Security Council members to exert pressure on the Arab, regional and international countries supporting terrorism in Syria to stop arming and funding the terrorist groups based on the Security Council resolutions on combating terrorism.

He also called on the members to expose the immoral and illegal aspects of the illegitimate sanctions imposed on Syria unilaterally.

2 thoughts on “Al-Jaafari: UNSG 11th Report on Children and Armed Conflict Is Unprofessional and Motivated by Incitement against Syria”

[…] Al-Jaafari: UNSG 11th Report on Children and Armed Conflict Is Unprofessional and Motivated by Incit… He decried the report as lacking the evidence and facts and depending instead on mere media-based anti-Syria claims, wishing that the report’s makers would have at least taken into consideration the Syrian government’s point of view “which we have persisted in conveying it to Komara Swami since the beginning of the events and until the end of her mandate.” […]